Institutio Oratoria
Quintilian
Quintilian. Institutio Oratoria, Volume 1-4. Butler, Harold Edgeworth, translator. Cambridge, Mass; London: Harvard University Press, William Heinemann Ltd., 1920-1922.
I went back from the ultimate species (which generally contains the vital point of the case) to the first general question or descended from the genus to the ultimate species, [*](cp. v. x. 5, 6. The statement man is an animal is insufficient as a definition, animal being the genus. Man is mortal introduces a species, but one common to other animals. Man is rational introduces the ultima species. ) applying this method even to deliberative themes.
For example, Numa is deliberating whether to accept the crown offered him by the Romans. First he considers the general question,
Ought I to be a king?Then,
Ought I to be king in a foreign state? Ought I to be king at Rome? Are the Romans likely to put up with such a king as myself?So too in controversial themes. Suppose a brave man to choose another man's wife as his reward. The ultimate species is found in the question whether lie is allowed to choose another man's wife. The general question is whether he should be given whatever he chooses. Next come questions such as whether he can choose his reward from the property of private individuals, whether he
But in our search for such questions we follow an order quite different from that which we employ in actual speaking. [*](cp. III. ix. 6. ) For that which as a rule occurs to us first, is just that which ought to come last in our speech: as for instance the conclusion,
You have no right to choose another man's wife.Consequently undue haste will spoil our division of the subject. We must not therefore be content with the thoughts that first offer themselves, but should press our inquiry further till we reach conclusions such as that he ought not even to choose a widow: a further advance is made when we reach the conclusion that be should choose nothing that is private property, or last of all we may go back to the question next in order to the general question, and conclude that he should choose nothing inequitable.
Consequently after surveying our opponent's proposition, an easy task, we should consider, if possible, what it is most natural to answer first. And, if we imagine the case as being actually pleaded and ourselves as under the necessity of making a reply, that answer will probably suggest itself. On the other hand,
if this is impossible, we should put aside whatever first occurs to us and reason with ourselves as follows:
What if this were not the case?We must then repeat the process a second and a third time and so on, until nothing is left for consideration. Thus we shall examine even minor points, by our treatment of which we may perhaps make the judge all the better disposed to us when we come to the main issue.
The rule that we should descend from the common to the particular is much the same, since
He killed a tyrantis common, while
A tyrant was killed by his son, by a woman or by his wifeare all particular.